Archive for December, 2015

Speaking of post-9/11 effects, as I do from time to time, I lace gunslinger civilians, police brutality (and murder), and Americans’ gulping obeisance to authority. I talk locally, as in the sniveling shelter-in-place orders and behavior after the Boston Marathon bombings. (Boston Strong is more like Boston Gutless.)

George Zimmerman types and open-carry monsters kill without consequence, as do far too many police officers. Word is OBEY, obey authority, obey anyone with a gun, obey TSA gropers and on and on. Too many cops kill and skate with the casual claim, “I felt my life was threatened.”

How did so many police officers turn into knock-kneed murderers? How could they even think to justify shooting repeatedly from a distance and slaying instead of disarming or, well, policing? I contend it is an emotion-based mind shift that we need to reverse immediately. Mayors, police chiefs and superintendents, prosecutors and judges have to put their palms out. Basta! We absolutely must not continue to infantilize cops and let them escape responsibility.

How cynical can humans be? Let’s consider anti-gay winger hate groups, those that pretend they are being oppressed by inference. I went on about a local example, an anti-gay group (of one) that published a report of an Australian RC archbishop who might get fined for foisting a homophobic pamphlet on parochial schools.

Sure the Australian laws differ from U.S. ones, as do Canadian versions. Most large countries forbid and punish the type of hate speech America allows.

Hence, it’s all the more astonishing to read or hear of wingers here playing drama queens. Oh, oh, someone in Australia just might have to pay a fine for hate speech…that could happen here…unless you write us a check. Be prepared for your crazed old relatives at the family dinners.

Today’s show recognized the type change we have experienced as a nation. It’s no longer a difference of degree, as so many European and Middle-Eastern countries have experienced in recent decades. Since 9/11 and even more intimately this year, Americans truly are at risk, on our own soil. We should no longer pretend that terrorist attacks happen over there or that we exclude any one religious or ethnic group from settling or visiting, we’ll be safe again.

Yeah, yeah, we can point to this or that Muslim murderer. Yet if we deny that nearly all mass murderers in memory have been self-identified Christians who are native born. Retreating into xenophobia and isolationism will fail us now as it always has over several centuries.

Here’s a call to deal with guns designed and sold exclusively for mass murder, and to begin to find and neutralize homegrown terrorists. We all need to go to our Congressional and state legislators.

These and similar regulations are obvious, simple and may save thousands of lives a year. Unfortunately, lawmakers at state and federal levels are largely too gutless to do these without prompting. So prompt them.